Polymer-modified therapeutics have proven to be of great utility in modern pharmaceutical science. Due to the success of polymer-modified therapeutics, it is of interest to expand the range of polymers suitable for such applications, especially to provide polymers having properties not possessed by polymers of the prior art. A need exists for functional, water-soluble, non-toxic polymers which can be used to prepare desired conjugates with target molecules. To prepare these therapeutic conjugates it is frequently necessary to synthesize water soluble polymers of high molecular weight and high purity. The present disclosure provides homo-functional polyoxazoline compounds, terminated with inert groups, which provide ready coupling to a range of target molecules, such as but not limited to, therapeutic, diagnostic and/or targeting moieties. In addition, the present disclosure provides some novel polyoxazolines, which may or may not be homo-functional, and which are prepared from novel polyoxazoline initiators disclosed here for the first time.